GHS Students use Tik Tok to have fun and go viral during pandemic

Many students from Greendale have turned to Tik Tok, one of the largest social media platforms there is today, as a way to have fun with friends or express their creativity.

During quarantine, scrolling through videos had become a popular way of passing time when stuck at home. Even after the long quarantine phase in 2020, many people found that going on Tik Tok had just become a common habit. 

Junior Cade Wilson enjoys scrolling through Tik Toks on a daily basis. “I probably spend 3 to 4 hours of my day on Tik Tok, I’m always on it before I go to bed,” Wilson said. 

Millions of users also create new content every day and new tik toks are going viral every second. From viral tik toks, many are able to become social media influencers with millions of followers. 

A couple students in particular from GHS have recently gained a large following and a lot of recognition.  Junior Danijela Gallo (@danijelag) had fun with her family on Tik Tok over winter break and created a video with her grandpa, also known as “Nanu”, doing a dance trend from the app. 

Her Tik Tok account originally had around 200 followers prior to her video going viral, and after it blew up she had gained around 181.5k followers. With Nanu’s crazy dancing skills, the video itself earned 3.5 million likes and gained more than 55k comments on the post. 

Gallo showed her grandpa the fame and love his dance moves had received. “He couldn’t believe it and thought it was a joke,” she said. 

The fame Nanu had received was recognized by many other famous Tik Tokers. “One was famous for his transition videos on Tik Tok, and others were famous for their dancing videos and popular accounts,” Gallo said. 

Junior Chloe Dembowiak (@chloedembo) also became a popular account on Tik Tok.. She works at a dog daycare, and loves to post videos with the dogs she works with. 

“I love my job and I wanted to share it with people, because who doesn’t love dogs?” Dembowiak said. “I like making them because I love the dogs and I think they make other people smile.”  

Dembowiak can’t believe how many likes her video received. One Tik Tok of hers showcasing the different dog breeds at her work had reached about 4.2 million likes and 18.2K comments. “I had about 16k I think before my big video,” Dembowiak said. Her Tik Toks after that continue to get a ton of likes and have people falling in love from the dogs at her daycare even more. 

Junior Lance Caballero (@shlumpedboi) started gaining followers because of his humorous Tik Toks, especially ones around the popular video game Minecraft. Along with Minecraft, he creates comedy Tik Toks, one reaching 110K along with a couple others that had blown up as well.
“I don’t really make Tik Toks that often anymore because I ran out of ideas, but when I do it’s because I’ve thought of a really good idea or my friends want to make one,” he said. “I was really surprised [that I had so many likes] because I don’t think they’re that funny.” 

People from small towns or big cities all have the chance and opportunity to create videos full of great content on Tik Tok, and it seems like a handful of GHS students have already had a taste of fame.